Pender's Blog by Lee Pender, RCPU Editor

XP: The Eternal Operating System?

If Rome is the Eternal City, then it must run on Windows XP. Even with considerable hype around Windows 7 continuing to swirl, Microsoft said this week that customers will be able to downgrade from Windows 7 not just to Vista (as if anybody would do that) but to XP. Redmond columnist Mary Jo Foley has the dish, as usual.

OK, we love XP. Everybody does. It's familiar and useful, and it still does most of what most of us need an OS to do. But at some point, isn't it going to enter a Willie Mays-with-the-Mets stage of its career? (For our foreign readers, that's another baseball reference; soccer fans, you might want to go with George Best with the L.A. Aztecs -- if you're old enough.) When does XP become antiquated? Our feeling is pretty soon -- when Windows 7, or maybe the first Windows 7 service pack, comes along and sends the legend into retirement.

Speaking of downgrades, we've been hearing that Microsoft's process for doing them is...well, not great. If you have any stories or complaints about it you'd like to share, share them at lpender@rcpmag.com.